Identification from Chest X-Rays: Reliability of Bone Density Patterns of the Humerus*
Presented at the XXth Congress of International Academy of Legal Medicine, August 23–26, 2006, in Budapest, Hungary.
Abstract
Abstract: A critical review of Kahana and Hiss’ study on identification from bone trabecular pattern and a test of their method conducted on the humerus are presented. Bone trabecular pattern was studied through the generation of a numerical file representing the gray scale. Using the correlation coefficient, several pairwise comparisons between numerical files were performed. The test gave nearly 30% of incorrect exclusions (the method did not recognize couples of radiographs belonging to the same subject) and 50% of misidentifications (the method recognized couples of radiographs belonging to different subjects, as belonging to the same subject); therefore, this research shows that at the present time, it is not possible to safely quantify identification through bone density patterns, of the proximal humerus taken from thoracic X-rays. Thus, an “easy”—but dangerous—use of trabecular density patterns on this specific type of radiogram as an identification method should be currently avoided.
